A piece of land is worth as much as the person farming it.
-Le Livre du Colon, 1902
Pecan Media: food forestry and forest garden ebooks
Now available: The Native Persimmon (centennial edition)
A build too cool to miss:Mike's GreenhouseA great example:Joseph's Garden
All the soil info you'll ever need:
Redhawk's excellent soil-building series
Timothy Markus wrote:Hi Pierre-Luc, and welcome to Permies.
First, you know you get down to -40C at times. It's OK, you can admit it. ;) I know we get down to that most winters in SW ON, sometimes for a week or two.
Timothy Markus wrote:Insulation and ventilation are pretty much mutually exclusive. It's nice to insulate the floor of the coop, but the deep litter takes care of that. Also, they'll happily roam around in the snow, so it's usually not a big deal. The window doesn't need to be double glazed as any heat in the coop will go right out the top. You also don't need a fancy cupola, just know that you need to get rid of the excess moisture and, as you know, keep the drafts off them.
Timothy Markus wrote:I built a 4x6' coop out of 2x3 frame on 2' centers and 1/2" ply sides and roof. I slanted the roof from 7' to 5' and kept my roosts at 2.5-3' so there was about 18" above the roosting hen to the 2" gap around the roof. I just ran 2x3" joists on top of the coop frame for the gap and used 1/2" hardware cloth to keep out rats, weasels and opossums. I had a couple of open cut outs that I covered with hardware cloth for more ventilation in the summer that I covered in the winter.
Chickens come with a down coat, so they can stay pretty warm in winter. I chose breeds with small combs, pea combs for preference. I had a number of Chanteclers, our only Canadian breed, and they do very well in winter, as you'd expect. I did end up with a couple of hens with big combs and they did get a little frostbite, but not bad. In winter, they'll crowd together on the roost for warmth, squat down on their feet and tuck they're heads under their wings. If you heat the coop and then lose power, they can't handle the abrupt change, so that'll kill them. I took my girls through several winters like that without any issues except frozen water and eggs.
I built a cookie tin waterer heater for underneath the plastic waterer, though I had to use 2 75W bulbs when it got down below -20C. If you do use a cupola, make your air intake the same gaps just below the roof. That way you'll have air stratification and it will come in under the roof and out the cupola, but the cupola should be at least 2' tall to get the right stack effect. I've done a lot of attic ventilation analyses and stratification is normally a bad thing, but good for livestock. Like I said, though, it's needlessly complicated as a 2" gap 18" above chicken height (2-2.5' above the roost) works just fine.
edit: I just wanted to add that you pretty much need to supplement light in our winters as they like 14 hours to lay well, even the Chanteclers, whatever anyone tells you. If you get them this year as ready to lay or pullets, you don't have to let them moult in the fall but next year let them moult naturally as the light wanes, then add light back gradually in the morning to get to 14 hours. You want them to experience natural dusk as they'll naturally go home to roost and the light won't shut off all of a sudden, leaving them on the floor.
Dan Boone wrote:My family had chickens in the 1970s in a log coop on the upper Yukon in Alaska, where it would get down below -50F and stay there for a couple of weeks at a time in January. Under those conditions at least, ventilation was the enemy. The goal was to seal that coop up as tightly as possible. It was about six feet by eight feet, just tall enough for a person to stand inside, flat roof, made of about six inch logs, chinked with moss, plywood and tarpaper flat roof insulated with several inches of moss with Visqueen (plastic) vapor barrier. There was sawdust on the floor of the coop but there was a screened bin under the perch to catch droppings. Ammonia in the air was a definite issue, but never so much that it seemed to affect the health of the chickens. I'm not saying any of this was a good way to do things, I'm just saying it was a way that worked and (mostly) kept chickens alive -- probably based on drawings/designs my parents saw in Mother Earth News magazine or Foxfire or a Rodale Press book.
In the very coldest temperatures they would hang an old fashioned barn lantern (kerosine-fueled, metal lantern, wires protecting the glass chimney) from a nail just inside the door, well away from the perch. It would provide a slight boost to the air temp in the coop.
Chickens were a mix of "spent" factory egg layers (white leghorns with trimmed beaks and claws, very stupid birds, barely able to walk or scratch or feed themselves, apparently sold cheap in those days after their egg production would start to drop) and Rhode Island Reds that we raised from chicks bought as chicks. The Reds had much larger combs and they did get a little bit of comb frostbite, but the Leghorns were much older birds. My recollection is that we did get some mortality (one or two dead birds) among the leghorns the first winter when it got really cold.
Trace Oswald wrote:I'm a huge fan of open air coops. In my opinion, ventilation is far more important than temperature. Woods' open air chicken coop book is fantastic.
Chickens in very cold weather get frostbite. They get frostbite far worse if there is any moisture at all in their coop. I kept chickens one year in a 3 sided coop i built from straw bales. It didn't have a front at all. It was narrow and pretty deep, I believe it was about 4 feet wide and 12 feet or so deep. I built the roof from old doors stacked across and resting on the side walls. I put more bales on top of them for insulation. I used tree branches at the very back for roosts. Since the front was entirely open and i never water my chickens in their coop, it stayed perfectly dry. With the roosts in the very back, they didn't get drafts. The opening was facing south and our really cold winds come from the north east. We had temps -15 to -20 regularly, and a low as -30f . The chickens were fine and the rooster had almost no frostbite on his comb. The rooster in my traditional coop got worse frostbite.
Woods' book talks about the minimum depth the coop can be to keep the chickens away from drafts with a completely open air coop.
Other people mentioned snow. My chickens won't walk in snow. They don't mind the cold but none of the breeds I have raised would walk in snow. I build open ended greenhouse type structures to give mine areas to walk without snow in the winter. That is also where their water is, never in the coop.
Pierre-Luc Drouin wrote:
Thanks for sharing your experience. -50F in Alaska is definitely more extreme than here. If you say that ammonia was an issue, do you think they were also affected by moisture as well under these conditions?
Pecan Media: food forestry and forest garden ebooks
Now available: The Native Persimmon (centennial edition)
Pierre-Luc Drouin wrote:
Thanks for all the helpful information. I want to stay away from active heating. Regarding what you are saying about air stratification, do you mean that it would be better, if I have a design that involves a cupola, that the air intakes be located right under the roof instead of lower in the coop? Even if the intakes do not cause the coop to be drafty due to the air moving only through a controlled stack effect? The 4" pipe that would go to my cupola would be about 4' tall...
I intend to bring power to the coop to supplement light, warm up water, control doors, the ceiling vent and to monitor the temperature/humidity. The roof will have a 45 degree pitch and face south so it is ideal for solar panels in the future.
You want the air intake above the chickens, not below, as that would cause drafts from bottom to top. I like air intake to be about 18" above the chickens when roosting. I never bothered to calculate air changes, I just gave them enough ventilation to make sure it was fresh air. If your roof only has a single slope, you need your air egress at the top of the slope. If you put a cupola in the middle, the ammonia can pool in the upslope of the ceiling.An idea I have is to create vertical air intakes under the coop, which will sit 2' above the ground, and introduce that air in the coop about 1.5' above the floor (about 0.5' under the roost bars).
A piece of land is worth as much as the person farming it.
-Le Livre du Colon, 1902
Trace Oswald wrote:I'm a huge fan of open air coops. In my opinion, ventilation is far more important than temperature. Woods' open air chicken coop book is fantastic.
Chickens in very cold weather get frostbite. They get frostbite far worse if there is any moisture at all in their coop. I kept chickens one year in a 3 sided coop i built from straw bales. It didn't have a front at all. It was narrow and pretty deep, I believe it was about 4 feet wide and 12 feet or so deep. I built the roof from old doors stacked across and resting on the side walls. I put more bales on top of them for insulation. I used tree branches at the very back for roosts. Since the front was entirely open and i never water my chickens in their coop, it stayed perfectly dry. With the roosts in the very back, they didn't get drafts. The opening was facing south and our really cold winds come from the north east. We had temps -15 to -20 regularly, and a low as -30f . The chickens were fine and the rooster had almost no frostbite on his comb. The rooster in my traditional coop got worse frostbite.
Woods' book talks about the minimum depth the coop can be to keep the chickens away from drafts with a completely open air coop.
Other people mentioned snow. My chickens won't walk in snow. They don't mind the cold but none of the breeds I have raised would walk in snow. I build open ended greenhouse type structures to give mine areas to walk without snow in the winter. That is also where their water is, never in the coop.
Maybe Life is always like being on a trapeze or a tightrope at the circus...
Christopher Weeks wrote:I'm building a henhouse for my first flock next spring. I've read a bunch of conflicting stuff about insulating vs. ventilating in other places and it occurred to me to come search here to help break the ties. Sadly, y'all mimic the conflict that I see everywhere. I guess I'm going to have to build with large hardware-clothed windows and just have 3" foam inserts to shove between the studs so I can go either way and decide day by day how open things should be. I also hope to avoid electric heating, except maybe for water, but our low last winter was -36F and I sure don't want to hurt my animals.
Trace Oswald wrote:
Christopher, if you read Woods' book, it may alleviate some of your concerns. The book is available free in PDF format due to it's age. Here it is in one place: Modern Fresh Air Poultry Houses I designed my newest coop from that book. Your climate is very similar to mine here in Wisconsin. My bird have done fine through two nights of -40 and many, many nights of -20 to -30 with no heat. Like you, I've seen it debated nearly endlessly, but I've never seen open air, non-insulated coops debated against except by people that have never tried it. I've yet to read a single account of someone that actually tried one and then decided it didn't work well.
Brody Ekberg wrote:
Trace Oswald wrote:
Christopher, if you read Woods' book, it may alleviate some of your concerns. The book is available free in PDF format due to it's age. Here it is in one place: Modern Fresh Air Poultry Houses I designed my newest coop from that book. Your climate is very similar to mine here in Wisconsin. My bird have done fine through two nights of -40 and many, many nights of -20 to -30 with no heat. Like you, I've seen it debated nearly endlessly, but I've never seen open air, non-insulated coops debated against except by people that have never tried it. I've yet to read a single account of someone that actually tried one and then decided it didn't work well.
Trace, where in Wisconsin are you? We live in Iron River MI about 7 miles from the Wisconsin border. We get -30 or so most winters as well. Do you guys get much snow where you’re at? I ask because I’m trying to imagine how an open air coop would work in the winter with blowing, drifting snow. Obviously, facing the open end 180 degrees away from the prevailing winds would be the way to go, but wouldn’t blowing snow drift over the roof and curl into the open side of the coop?
I haven’t looked into the design much because we’re only a year and a half into raising chickens, but I will check out the link you provided in case he addresses that. I learned the hard way last winter how important ventilation is. All 7 of our chickens got frost bitten combs twice. Once I blocked the drafty windows better and added more ventilation up above they seemed to do better.
Trace Oswald wrote:
The design of open air coops is pretty specific. You don't really want ventilation above your chickens. If you have an open front and any opening at the top, you create a chimney effect that draws cold air in the front, along with snow and whatever else, and out through the openings in the top. That creates a cold draft right through your coop and cold weather + drafts = bad. The easiest way for me to picture a properly built open air coop is to picture a long narrow cave. The front is entirely open, but since the back and top of the cave is airtight, no drafts can penetrate the cave. There is plenty of ventilation from the open front, but air trying to blow to the back is stopped because there is no outlet for it. If you built a room that was 6' wide and 6' tall, but 20' deep, and stood at the very back, closed, end of the room, even on a very windy day, you wouldn't feel a breeze. Also, the back part of the coop is larger than the front, so it creates a large air pocket in the area where the chickens roost. In the summer, you open windows in the upper part of the coop and create that chimney effect. That lets cooler air come in the front and pass through the coop and the warmer air goes out the windows, so you create a breeze that cools and dries the coop. It's a pretty fascinating design I think.
Brody Ekberg wrote:
Ill have to look into it more deeply for my next coop build. Currently, our little 4x8 coop isn’t airtight, but most of the air spaces are above the chickens head level while they are roosted, which is also the level of the ventilation. So, most of the moving air should be above them, but the design is far from perfect.
One concern I would have with one full wall being open is the oddball days where the wind switches. Most of our winter winds come from the northwest, so the open end would be towards the southeast, but we do get south winds sometimes and there would be no good way to block that from entering the coop. I suppose even just some cardboard or a tarp could be used for a night if necessary.
Trace Oswald wrote:
If your coop isn't air tight, I think you may have a problem having vents above the chickens because any heat they create with their bodies will cause the air in the coop to rise and go out through the vents. This will cause cold air to be pulled in from any nook or cranny that isn't sealed anywhere else in the coop.
I may not have explained well how the open wall works. Even if it the opening faced directly into the wind, the wind can't enter the coop if it is a longer, narrower shape. When the wind tries to blow into the open wall, it has no escape route at the other end of the coop and the air pressure keeps the wind from entering. Wind can't go into the coop if it has nowhere to exit. That's why these coops are built relatively long and narrow. In a 4'x8' coop, that probably isn't the case.
Brody Ekberg wrote:
Trace Oswald wrote:
If your coop isn't air tight, I think you may have a problem having vents above the chickens because any heat they create with their bodies will cause the air in the coop to rise and go out through the vents. This will cause cold air to be pulled in from any nook or cranny that isn't sealed anywhere else in the coop.
I may not have explained well how the open wall works. Even if it the opening faced directly into the wind, the wind can't enter the coop if it is a longer, narrower shape. When the wind tries to blow into the open wall, it has no escape route at the other end of the coop and the air pressure keeps the wind from entering. Wind can't go into the coop if it has nowhere to exit. That's why these coops are built relatively long and narrow. In a 4'x8' coop, that probably isn't the case.
Ive got too much to do between now and winter to build a new coop, so I will just see how the chickens do this winter with the few changes I made. I was noticing last year that the inside of the coop was roughly 7-10 degrees warmer than the outside temperature just from their body heat. But that was before I added more ventilation.
I am fascinated with the idea that air wont blow into these coops though, even if blowing directly at the open side. I’m picturing myself in a north facing cave during a north wind and having a hard time believing I wouldn’t feel the wind. Or with the same logic, if I put a feather in the bottom of a deep glass and I try to blow the feather around, it shouldn’t move much right? Same concept. Ill have to give that a try later!
Trace Oswald wrote:
Another thing is to keep in mind that the rear of the coop has a much higher ceiling than the front, and so will also create a "dead air" space. If you open the windows, that space disappears, but with them tightly closed, I wouldn't expect much if any air movement in that area.
I'm about halfway finished with my new coop. I stopped working on it when prices went crazy, but they are dropping somewhat now, so I'll probably start on it again soon. The new one is 8'x16' and I'm really happy with the way it is coming along. I'll post about that one when I have had a chance to have it up and running for some amount of time.
Brody Ekberg wrote:
Trace Oswald wrote:
Another thing is to keep in mind that the rear of the coop has a much higher ceiling than the front, and so will also create a "dead air" space. If you open the windows, that space disappears, but with them tightly closed, I wouldn't expect much if any air movement in that area.
I'm about halfway finished with my new coop. I stopped working on it when prices went crazy, but they are dropping somewhat now, so I'll probably start on it again soon. The new one is 8'x16' and I'm really happy with the way it is coming along. I'll post about that one when I have had a chance to have it up and running for some amount of time.
I’m just trying to get this all straight so correct me if I’m wrong:
The front of the coop is the open side
The back of the coop has a significantly higher ceiling
The roosts are in the back
Wouldn’t that mean that the most stagnant and humid air is around the roosts and the fresh air is farthest from the sleeping chickens? I see how opening a window above the roosts would help a lot, but I wonder what the balance would be in open vs closed during winter. Our chickens are almost always outside anyway except for at night.
Trace Oswald wrote:Christopher, if you read Woods' book, it may alleviate some of your concerns. The book is available free in PDF format due to it's age. Here it is in one place: Modern Fresh Air Poultry Houses I designed my newest coop from that book. Your climate is very similar to mine here in Wisconsin. My bird have done fine through two nights of -40 and many, many nights of -20 to -30 with no heat. Like you, I've seen it debated nearly endlessly, but I've never seen open air, non-insulated coops debated against except by people that have never tried it. I've yet to read a single account of someone that actually tried one and then decided it didn't work well.
Francis Mallet wrote:I built the small size Woods house which is 6x10 and according to the author can accommodate 12-15 birds. I currently have 14 birds in there but during summer I had 24 at one point. I feel that 14 is too much during winter because the chickens don't go outside, 10 would be better.
January/Febuary are our coldest months with lots of nights in the -20F. One rooster got frostbite on its large comb and wattles, the others are ok. His problems don't come from the coop design, he's just not suited for the climate here.
The coop has no floor, is not insulated and not powered (no heat and no light). I spent some time in there with the chickens during a bad winter storm, the air inside was perfectly calm. I keep the windows covered with plastic but the front is always open. I've never seen any signs of condensation or frost.
If it smells when the ground thaws I add more shavings. In spring I empty the coop and put new shavings for a fresh start. I dump everything in the run to start the compost pile. I can hear the doubt when I mention my coop in unheated. I've visited a couple of heated coops and I understand the concern. Without electricity I don't think those coops would work, and the stink!
I never had chickens that liked snow. This fall I bough a hay bale and when it's nice outside I'll spread some in the run and they like it a lot.
Maybe Life is always like being on a trapeze or a tightrope at the circus...
i too put down some hay. on nicer days i open the door and let them wander where i snowblow.Francis Mallet wrote:I built the small size Woods house which is 6x10 and according to the author can accommodate 12-15 birds. I currently have 14 birds in there but during summer I had 24 at one point. I feel that 14 is too much during winter because the chickens don't go outside, 10 would be better.
January/Febuary are our coldest months with lots of nights in the -20F. One rooster got frostbite on its large comb and wattles, the others are ok. His problems don't come from the coop design, he's just not suited for the climate here.
The coop has no floor, is not insulated and not powered (no heat and no light). I spent some time in there with the chickens during a bad winter storm, the air inside was perfectly calm. I keep the windows covered with plastic but the front is always open. I've never seen any signs of condensation or frost.
If it smells when the ground thaws I add more shavings. In spring I empty the coop and put new shavings for a fresh start. I dump everything in the run to start the compost pile. I can hear the doubt when I mention my coop in unheated. I've visited a couple of heated coops and I understand the concern. Without electricity I don't think those coops would work, and the stink!
I never had chickens that liked snow. This fall I bough a hay bale and when it's nice outside I'll spread some in the run and they like it a lot.
Brody Ekberg wrote:Very nice coop! I’m looking to build the Woods 6x10 coop this summer. Did you follow the plans in the Modern Fresh Air Poultry Houses book exactly or did you tweak the plans to account for sheets of plywood and modern lumber dimensions?
Francis Mallet wrote:
Brody Ekberg wrote:Very nice coop! I’m looking to build the Woods 6x10 coop this summer. Did you follow the plans in the Modern Fresh Air Poultry Houses book exactly or did you tweak the plans to account for sheets of plywood and modern lumber dimensions?
I improvised to fit plywood and to use what I had on hand. I can't say it's a clean build, lots of little annoying details popping up as I went along. I built the walls inside my workshop and I forgot to account for the thickness of the shop doors when open. Three inches taller and the chickens would now live in the shop lol
It's a nice looking coop although for my next one I'd like to find a simpler, cheaper design.
This link is from the guy who publishes the book I got:
FAQ: Chicken Coops
Maybe Life is always like being on a trapeze or a tightrope at the circus...
Brody Ekberg wrote:
What sort of “little annoying details” kept popping up? I ask because I have very little building experience and want to build this coop this summer. Ive already got loads of rough cut red pine lumber for the framing and for siding it so expenses shouldn’t be bad aside for roofing, plywood, windows and little miscellaneous things.
My lumber is between 1.75x3.75” and a literal 2”x4”, so different from dimensional lumber in stores. I have no idea what the original Woods coops were built with. I would assume lumber sizes weren't a lie back then but I really don't know. So, im wondering if I will run into issues if I just use my lumber and follow the blueprint or if I should try to think the whole thing through and make adjustments based off of size differences.
Are you here to take over the surface world? Because this tiny ad will stop you!
The new permaculture playing cards kickstarter is now live!
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/paulwheaton/garden-cards
|